Opposition Alleges Afghan Election Fraud

By DANIEL COONEY

Associated Press

October 9, 2004

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghanistan's first direct presidential election
was thrust into turmoil hours after it started Saturday when all 15 candidates
challenging interim leader Hamid Karzai alleged fraud over the ink meant to
ensure people voted only once and vowed to boycott the results.

But
electoral officials rejected their demand that the vote be called off, saying an
apparent mix-up with ink used to mark voters' thumbs was not severe enough to
halt the historic vote. They said they would rule on the legitimacy of the vote
later.

"The vote will continue because halting the vote at this stage is
unjustified and would deny these people their right to vote," said Ray Kennedy,
vice chairman of the joint United Nations-Afghan electoral body. "There have
been some technical problems but overall it has been safe and orderly."

Karzai said the fate of the vote was in the hands of the electoral body, but
he added that in his view "the election was free and fair ... it is very
legitimate"

"Who is more important, these 15 candidates, or the millions of people who
turned out today to vote?" Karzai said. "Both myself and all these 15
candidates should respect our people - because in the dust and snow and rain,
they waited for hours and hours to vote."

Election officials said workers
at some voting stations mistakenly swapped the permanent ink meant to mark
thumbs with normal ink meant for ballots, but insisted the problem was caught
quickly.

The boycott cast a pall over what had been a joyous day in
Afghanistan, where millions of Afghans braved threats of Taliban violence to
crowd polling stations for an election aimed at bringing peace and prosperity to
a country nearly ruined by more than two decades of war. The Taliban was ousted
by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Voters queued for hours outside
polling stations in bombed-out schools, blue-domed mosques and bullet-pocked
hospitals to cast ballots, while more than 100,000 soldiers, police, U.S.
troops and other security forces deployed to thwart attacks.

The international community spent nearly $200 million staging the vote. At
least 12 election workers, and dozens of Afghan security forces, died in the
past few months as the nation geared up for the vote.

Karzai went into
the election a heavy favorite, but needed to win a majority to avoid a runoff
against the second-place finisher. Results were expected to take some time to
tally because of the inaccessibility of many Afghan towns and villages.

The opposition candidates, meeting at the house of Uzbek candidate Abdul
Satar Sirat, signed a petition saying they would not recognize the results
because the glitches with ink opened the way for widespread fraud.

"Today's election is not a legitimate election. It should be stopped and we
don't recognize the results," said Sirat, a former aide to Afghanistan's last
king and a minor candidate given little chance of winning.

U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e
Silva said the ink problem was not as pervasive as the candidates claimed.

"I don't think we can lose sight of the perspective. There are 23,000
polling stations in the country. We do not have indications it (the ink mix-up)
was to a great extent," he said.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad
arrived at Sirat's house after Karzai's challengers reiterated their charges in
a second meeting. He made no comment other than to say he was there "only to
help."

Khalilzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, has
been widely criticized for perceived favoritism for Karzai, and he is seen by
many Afghans as a puppet-master. After his arrival, several Afghans gathered
outside the house joked that a resolution to the crisis was near because "the
big man has arrived."

The issue of the ink was crucial because officials said before the vote that
many people had received more than one registration card for the election by
mistake. Vote organizers argued that the indelible ink would prevent people
from voting twice, even if they had more than one card. About 10.5 million
registration cards were handed out ahead of the election, a staggering number
that U.N. and Afghan officials say was inflated by widespread double
registration. Human rights groups said some people obtained four or five voter
cards, thinking they would be able to use them to receive humanitarian aid.

Afghanistan has an estimated population of 25 million.

Massooda Jalal,
the only woman in the field and one of the candidates to sign the petition, said
she decided to protest after getting calls of complaint from her
constituents.

"The ink that is being used can be rubbed off in a minute.
Voters can vote 10 times!" she said.

"Very easily they can erase the ink," he said.
"This is a trick that is designed to clear the way for cheating."

Earlier
in the day, Karzai, accompanied by heavily armed bodyguards, voted in a room at
what was once the prime minister's residence. He rubbed his thumb to show
reporters the ink did not rub off.

"It is not important who wins, but it
is important that Afghanistan makes its own future," he told reporters before
the call for the boycott surfaced. "This is a very great day. God is very kind
to us."

All roads
leading to Kabul and other major cities were heavily guarded and closed to most
traffic. Heightened security measures appeared to work, despite plenty of signs
Taliban rebels were trying to disrupt the polls.

On Friday, a
bomb-sniffing dog discovered a fuel truck rigged with anti-tank mines and laden
with 10,000 gallons of gasoline that three Pakistanis planned to detonate in the
southern city of Kandahar, said Col. Ishaq Paiman, the Defense Ministry deputy
spokesman. The blast would have killed hundreds and "derailed" balloting in the
south, he said.

The election offered a stark contrast in a nation that
has endured many forms of imposed rule in the past 30 years - among them
monarchy, Soviet occupation, warlord fiefdoms and the repressive Taliban
theocracy ousted by the U.S.-led invasion following the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.

"I came here to vote so we can have democracy and stability and
peace in Afghanistan," said Aziz Ullah, a 19-year-old Kabul shopkeeper. "There
used to only be a transfer of power by force or killing."

Women voted at separate booths from
men, in keeping with the nation's conservative Islamic leaning.

The
European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe sent
observer missions, but neither said it planned to pass judgment on the fairness
of the process, saying it would not be appropriate to try to hold Afghanistan to
international standards. A small U.S. observer team also was monitoring the
vote.

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Associated Press writers Stephen Graham in Kandahar,
Burt Herman in Mazar-e-Sharif and Amir Shah and Paul Haven in Kabul contributed
to this report.